Technological marvel or popularity poll?

Today I sent out my first ever evite. I would explain what evite is, but chances are if you know what a blog is (and you're reading one), you know what an evite is. Evite has gotten cooler and cooler over the years and you can now even use it as a casual central messaging board for people who want to throw some kind of party-thing at some place at some time. New features include the ability to ask your guests to bring something, ask your guests what date, time, or place they would like to have a party, and poll your guests about pretty much whatever you want. Amazingly, it's still free, probably because of the ads littering the sidebars.

So, one of the things I've always loved about evite is that you can see who's said they're coming, and who can't make it, etc. This is convenient for those responding and for the host, because no phone calls are necessary, nor is the effort of constructing an email -- you just click on your response and submit, typing a message if you'd like. For us children of the 70s and 80s, this is fantastic because it avoids the awkwardness of actual one-on-one contact. Just as email replaced phone calls, evite can replace email for this task.

But now I'm learning about the host features. For instance, as a host, you can see who your guests have invited. Fortunately, no one else can tell if you invited them or the friend invited them (which is good because it's bad enough if you forgot someone's email address and have to apologize to them -- it's worse if everyone gets to speculate whether you forgot or whether there's a tiff to gossip about). Another host feature: you can see who's viewed the evite and when.

WHOA.

So I can see when people have looked at the evite even though most of them haven't responded. For someone as attention-hungry as me, this is BRUTAL. "Please like me!" cries a low-self-esteem part of me. Instead, I get to wait and see people check back for the planned attendees to see if my party is cool enough.

But I'm cool! I promise!

Except my hair isn't really blonde

Your results:
You are Supergirl

Supergirl 92% Superman 80% Wonder Woman 77% Iron Man 75% The Flash 65% Green Lantern 60% Spider-Man 50% Robin 47% Hulk 45% Batman 40% Catwoman 40%

Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

HT: cm

You boys should be proud of me

I did some post-Thanksgiving shopping this weekend. Not the type for other people. The type for me.

Whatever, they totally have the best sales after Thanksgiving and it makes SENSE to shop for myself then.

I didn't do any of the girly-type shopping, either. Nope, I went straight to Man-Heaven for my indulgence needs: Best Buy. I followed this up with a trip to Good Guys, which as of this morning is closed forever (which means AWESOME clearance savings). What did I get myself?

A 46" widescreen rear-projection Samsung television.

A Playstation 2.

Eight new games for my PS2, including the man-friendly titles Soul Calibur 3, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and a fun Simpsons game whose title I can't recall. I also purchased a second controller, DDR with a dance pad (fun AND good cardio!), two memory cards and an Eyetoy.

DVD seasons for some of my favorite TV shows (including Nip/Tuck and Arrested Development).

Not a blouse or pair of shoes in the mix. I think tonight I should paint my nails or something to prove to myself that I haven't grown a penis. Except that would take away time from playing games in front of my giant new TV.

I'll post a pic of the new bigscreen once I get home from work.

Biting the hand that feeds

While searching for the skip button on the obligatory sales lead-in on a recent visit to The Onion, I briefly noticed a Budweiser ad with a picture of a hand holding a red-colored drink in a martini glass. The hand is normal-sized except for the pinky, which is shrunk to (eyballing it) roughly a fifth of its regular size. The ad reads "Foo foo drinky means little pinky."

Boy, are they subtle or what.

What Budweiser doesn't realize is that it's insulted those of its customers who care at least a little bit that anyone around them doesn't hate their guts. I'll translate in case it's not obvious. Ready for it?







Big Dicks Drink Budweiser.

I'll be happy just not getting the boot

Apparently during the busy holiday season, a turkey gets better treatment from the airlines than most world-weary human travelers.

Look, I think it's great and wonderful and happy that this turkey's life is saved and he gets to live out his days at Disneyland. Go turkey, go PETA, go Bush, go Mickey, yadda yadda yadda.

I just think that, on balance, it isn't right that I can get kicked off of airline flights when some turkey gets first class seats! I'm just sayin'.

Tomorrow night is my United flight home. I don't yet have a seat assignment, so please forgive me if I'm a little on edge. Yes, I do plan to check in online tonight. And yes, I will bother them incessantly if I haven't yet been assigned a seat. I've been here before with United, and it just ain't pretty when they don't assign you a seat in advance.

I suppose I should be greatful I don't fly Delta. But somehow I'm still anxious about my flight.

Gah! A tag!

I've been tagged! And I just now noticed. So here it is, finally.

Here's how you play this one:

1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Post the fifth sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.

My 23rd post only has three sentences, so here's the third:

And while you're at it, here's a leprechaun for you to color.

It was a St. Paddy's Day post and I left something fun for the kiddies :)

Hmmmm... I tag odderie, micah, jca, roonie, and gus! (those of you who no longer update your blogs *ahem* can play in the comments :))

Lead-brained

I hope this isn't catching on.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've noticed with increasingly frequency (whether this is due to actual increased frequency or just me paying better attention, I don't know) people using the word "lead" where the context clearly suggests past tense.

I understand that "lead" has two pronunciations, depending upon how the word is used. If it's used as a verb, it takes the long "ee" sound. If it's used as a noun, it takes the short "eh" sound.

Some people have apparently gotten their homonyms confused. The past tense of "lead" (or its negative, "mislead") is "led" (or "misled"), not "lead" (or "mislead"). This is basic stuff, right? A second-grader ought to know this. Yet the improper spelling has turned up in more legal briefs than I care to have read lately.

Em Eye thee only won hoo proofreads anymore?

Door-to-door cablemen

I guess it's true that you really never know when the cable guy is going to chow up.

Here I am, minding my own business at the computer, when my doorbell rings. I walk to the door and standing outside is an Adelphia employee.

"Is your cable working all right?" he asked.

I furrowed my brows, confused.

"Um, I don't have Adelphia."

"Oh," he seems to brighten, "are you getting anything on the TV?"

"Yeah," I say, "I have DirecTV."

He thanks me and walks off.

How strange. Apparently Adelphia is now selling cable door to door?

Crescendo e finis

An ocean wave picks up speed and lifts itself towards the heavens, rolling and churning before finally crashing against the shore and gently receeding back into the sea.

A gymnast raises her arms, runs and trots across the plastic mat, accelerating until a final jump, somersault, and square-footed landing, stopping on a dime and raising her arms to the cheering crowd.

A novelist reaches her final chapter, the words finding their way to the paper before she's sure she's even thought them yet, and her pulse thunders and her breath catches, and suddenly she is finished, and a novel is written.

A young lawyer shakes and twitches, nervously awaiting the words that seal her fate for the next four months, her hands trembling and her brow sweating, before reading the magical words that appear on her computer screen:

The name above appears on the pass list for the July 2005 California Bar Examination.

And for a few short moments, the world stops, all is calm, and she is truly at peace.

For the record, lest I forget

If one more person says to me "don't worry, you passed! You're smart, you passed!" or some variation thereof... heads will roll. ROLL!!

Today I am an ostrich

Pull my head out of the sand when it's Saturday.

Am I the only one who thinks it's messed up that we get bar exam results online today but supposedly they might not be correct and we have to wait for the letter to be sure? What's the point of putting the results online at all?

(I'm thinking, lawsuit! Unless I passed, then I'm not rocking the boat)

Stupid California.

I KNEW I should've bought a lotto ticket!

Damn. I was totally gonna do it today, too.

Perhaps there is creativity to me yet...

Last night I had the oddest dream. I recall a large number of disjointed images and occurrences, but the one that stands out the most is this: I walked into a room where a young man was the center of attention. I want to say his name was Tyle (you think that's weird; a girl in the dream was named Kamanthy. God save my poor future children!). Tyle was holding some strange-looking jelly-retainer-type thing. He announced that he had been re-dentured. What, you ask, is re-denturing? Tyle explained it thus: the dentist removes all of the patient's teeth, and then re-implants them into the gums. Apparently this is supposed to have some sort of therapeutic effect. All I know is, I woke up terrified that my teeth were going to fall out.

The dream dictionary has this to say about teeth in dreams:

teeth - Falling out: Loss of control over certain aspects of one's life. Powerlessness, unable to influence things or the outcome of things important. Loss of self-esteem in a situation or a chronic problem.

I'm sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with this one.

Law Fairy's feminist rant of the month

I think it's been long enough since my last good whine that I can go ahead -- especially for such big news.

Apparently Article 3 Groupie (A3G) isn't the starry-eyed gossip gal of the judiciary she has long claimed to be. Rather, "she" is 30-year-old David Lat, an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey. HT: Evan Schaeffer.

I can't say I was ever an A3G "fan," but I did read the blog on occasion. I didn't like the tone at all -- the drooling adoration of the federal judiciary made me nauseous. In the interests of fairness and full disclosure, I'm big enough to admit it's partly a case of sour grapes (the goddamn feds didn't give me a single interview -- which, with my school, my grades, my resume and the range of applications I sent out, in addition to my rigid adherence to the advice of my school's clerkship guru, was utterly inexplicable, objectively speaking). But it also fits with my general anti-elitist ideology -- one that's gotten stronger as I've observed how ridiculous and arbitrary are many of the criteria on which elites base their decisions.

On top of my general distaste for federal drooling, there was something else about the blog that always bugged me. It was just so... damn... GIRLY. Not to be accused by anti-feminist types of being anti-feminine, I don't have a problem per se with blogs being girly, or even with being girly with respect to legal matters. Legally Blonde is one of my favorite movies. I think it's fantastic for women to be who they want and express themselves how they want in any occupation, including law. But Underneath Their Robes wasn't an intelligent legal blog in pink with sidelines about the author's pet chihuahua. It was a gossip rag masquerading as legal insight. I get that this makes it all the more intriguing for law students, who hunger after every detail of the coveted clerks' lives. But let's be clear about this: it was childish. Childish is all well and good, and childish and girly is fine too -- it's just not my cup of tea.

But now we come to find that the "woman" behind all this is in fact a man. Why did Mr. Lat feel he needed to hide behind a feminine mask? Perhaps he thought immature gossip was not the domain of proper men -- but as a woman, he could get away with it. Women, after all, have nothing better to do with their time (unless it's popping out the kiddies or fixing dinner, that is). I'm exaggerating, of course, and I don't want to be unfair to Mr. Lat. He may not have given the gender of his author much thought at all. It certainly makes sense to choose a female author for a blog like his; men don't "dish." As a woman, his blog would be more believable and more popular. But as a woman, his blog was all the more fake. Whether or not they mean to, men like Mr. Lat and the infamous Libertarian Girl reinforce stereotypes of women. The pink background, the giggly attitude, the anti-feminist positions on key women's issues: this is how these men want to see women. This is not how women see themselves. If I pretended to be black and organized my website in a certain charicatured manner and spoke out against affirmative action, and then it was revealed that I was caucasion, people would rush to cry "racist!" -- and rightly so. So where is the outrage over these men's actions? Why, instead, are they celebrated and interviewed by The New Yorker?

I really hope I'm not the only one asking these questions.

Here's how cool my mom is...

I was talking to my mom last night and got to thinking about Friday's impending horror. Fortunately for me I'm visiting my folks for Thanksgiving (assuming, of course, that horrific United doesn't kick me off my flight to Colorado, which they are rather fond of doing), so whatever the outcome, I'll be surrounded by friendly faces and a comfortable environment. Also, it's much harder to commit suicide in your parents' house. Kidding! Sort of.

Anyway, I was thinking about this and said to my mom, "If it turns out I failed the Bar exam, it's going to be your job to keep me drunk the whole time I'm home so I don't feel the pain." Mom thought about it for a second, and then said, "okay -- or if you passed, it will be my job to keep you drunk so you can celebrate!"

She's already planning which bars we'll go to.

Hehe. Anyone who doesn't understand how I got to be me, just needs to meet my Mom.

>:-(

It looks like Arrested Development is going to be cancelled.

I want to describe how disappointing and upsetting this is, and how America apparently doesn't understand what good television is, but I don't know if there's a point anymore. I'm disappointed in my fellow couch potatoes. Shame on you, all of you!

Enjoy the drivel you've brought upon yourselves!

Law as Life, Part Three

Friday through Sunday marked my first "vacation" since starting work. Obviously, since it was just a weekend trip to Chicago, it's not quite an all-out vacation, but it did involve taking off a day from work and flying across the country to visit friends. It also involved a lot of shopping that put some damage back onto my credit card when I want and need so desperately to just pay it off. Sigh...

I flew to Chicago for a big alumni get-together with a debating society in which I was actively involved during law school. I stayed with a close friend who's currently a 3L and got to visit some of my old Chicago haunts. I had a blast and didn't get nearly enough sleep. I felt like crying when I had to leave yesterday, the realization hitting me with full force how much I missed being a law student and how different my life is now that I'm in the working world.

In fairness to myself, I absolutely knew that this would happen. I went into my third year with my eyes wide open. I knew, even as someone who had never worked as an honest-to-God adult, that school was something of a scam. Free money and more free time than you have as a legitimate kid -- PLUS the benefits of being a legal adult -- means you can do pretty much whatever the hell you want, consequences be damned. Add to that the fact that I've moved all the way across the country, to a place where I have a few friends but nothing like the numerous close bonds I formed with my fellow students over the last three years in Chicago, and you've got a situation that's simply much less fortunate in many ways, no matter how you look at it. Sure, I'm making real money now -- but I also can't justify deferring responsibility any longer. Bills now have to be paid without emergency recourse to my parents who, wonderfully generous though they are, now recognize me as an adult with her own job and salary. Shoot. The huge chunks of money I borrowed for law school now sit there, serving no purpose but to remind me that the good old days are over, and real life has officially begun.

So life after my first vacation is a little melancholy right now. Obviously there are great benefits to being finished with school and having a job -- and pleaseGodpleasepleasepleasepleaseplease not having to take any more exams, etc. But being a full-time student is something I can never really go back to, short of getting an MBA. And even plenty of MBA students still work. I've used up my student-life points and now I have to move on. And as much as I complained about aspects of school life, I really do miss it. Especially after spending last weekend pretending to be a law student again.

Thank God it's almost Thanksgiving. I need a vacation.

Strangers With Candy

I had no trick-or-treaters for Halloween. Not one :( After all my work carving a pumpkin and buying decorations and candy, no one even showed up.

So, rather than let the candy go to waste -- or, more frightening, go to MY waist -- I hauled my big orange candy bowl to work with me on Monday. It sits in my office, free for anyone to pick over.

The interesting thing I've noticed is that my supply is slowly dwindling, even though as yet I've only had two people actually stop by and take candy while I'm at work. Thus, people are taking my candy when I'm not around. Skittles seem to be particularly popular.

I don't mind people eating my candy; that's why I brought it here. But it makes me a little bit sad that they'd rather take it while I'm not around than stop in and say hi as they get their sugar fix. Really, I'm not that unbearable to be around.

Unrelated: I get a three-day weekend, hooray!

And the altitude makes the high even better

Residents and visitors in Denver can stay cool and chill out, man. If they smoke pot they're only subject to anti-drug laws at two levels of enforcement, rather than three.

The same story shows why, at least in Telluride, every vote really does count.

Breaking news!

Apparently parents need to screen their kids' movies.

What a bummer. That's really gotta cramp their social lives.

Archival wisdom

I miss The Virtual Meditation Chamber. A year or two ago, True Meaning Of Life decided to overhaul its format and remove the Chamber from its regular features. The Chamber now lives on only in archives.

This bit of advice seems particularly pertinent to those who, like myself, find themselves prone to procrastination (say that three times fast!). Good ol' Dick Cheney.

It's all about perspective

I remember one day when I was a teenager and I filled up at a local gas station. They were charging $1.75 for midgrade, which infuriated me. I couldn't believe gas could be so expensive.

Fast-forward seven years, and I was so excited about these gas prices that I took a picture:



Blogger is acting odd, so I'm not sure if the picture is displaying correctly. Anyway, the prices are $2.79 for regular, $2.87 for midgrade and $2.97 for premium. I couldn't believe my luck at finding such cheap gas (those of you not in Los Angeles may have better prices than this; I'm not sure -- but for me, this was exciting).

Crazy how a few years can change your point of view.